In light of the recent, failed attempt to abridge access to scholarly articles via the Research Works Act (RWA), a growing number of researchers have expressed their frustration with the status quo in scholarly publishing, and are interested in learning about concrete actions that they can take to effect positive change. SPARC has prepared this resource for our members, to help you to engage your faculty and researchers, and talk with them about options for taking such action.

Over the past few months, there has been a growing number of scholars on our campuses who have signed onto or expressed support for the actions called for in the boycott statement on the "Cost of Knowledge" website. SPARC has prepared a “suggested next steps” resource. These are meant to provide suggestions for helping to support the conversion of sentiments surrounding the boycott into constructive, tangible action that can help re-shape the current scholarly communication system.

The trend toward open access scientific publishing gained strength last week when the Wellcome Trust, the second-largest nongovernmental funder of scientific research in the world, said it was considering sanctions against scientists who do not make the results of their research freely available to the public.

In March 2009, the Public Library of Science (PLoS) became the first publisher to track transparent and comprehensive information about the usage and reach of published articles - rather than journals - so that the academic community has another avenue to help assess their value. These measures are called Article-Level Metrics (ALMs).

The Open Access movement is gaining momentum by the day. Just a short while ago you could still hear voices telling us that this was all just a hype and would go away Recent events however, have proved them to be wrong.

The arrival of eLife, a new open access journal, together with new science networking sites and new metrics to measure the impact of research publications may force the pace of change facing the business of scientific and academic publishing. We may be witnessing a tipping point in collaboration, faster access and new opportunities.